See No Evil At George Mason University

See No Evil At George Mason University

George Mason University (GMU) has labored for 2 years on simple plagiarism complaints. It has just written self-contradictory findings that avoided seeing plagiarism in the 2006 Wegman Report (WR) while admitting the same text elsewhere was plagiarism.

In March 2010, climate scientist Ray Bradley complained to GMU of 2.5 pages of plagiarism of his paleoclimatology book by the Wegman Report. In May he added 5.5 pages of WR Social Networks Analysis plagiarism and a 1.5 -page subset in a Computational Statistics and Data Analysis (CSDA) paper.

All were based on the work of Canadian blogger Deep Climate, who kept finding more problems. The known total of 80+ pages has 4 PhD dissertations, some lectures, a patent and 7 papers.

Edward Wegman and Yasmin Said published two largely-plagiarized papers in a “peer-reviewed” Wiley journal they edit with David Scott. Wikipedia pages they copied were better.

Late last month, GMU Provost Stearns wrote that there was no plagiarism in the Wegman Report, in a letter sent to faculty, but not Bradley. The already-retracted CSDA paper was ruled plagiarism, but Wegman's actions were labeled as “bad judgment” in “contextual sections.”

Wegman was ordered to apologize to CSDA and retract the already-retracted paper. A reprimand would be placed in his file. Bradley had patiently endured 6 months of misleading nonsense. He spoke only when asked directly by USA Today's Dan Vergano, but Stearns complained about Bradley.

The public expects academe to seek truth and punish academic misconduct, key elements of academe’s bargain with the public. Public trust is especially crucial for schools that receive Federal funding, such as GMU's $85M in 2010.

According to USA Today, “Stearns says the university is not investigating any other complaints.”

If true, not only did GMU violate its own policies on duration, but on process, because they have ignored numerous well-documented complaints, including about 4 papers with Federal funding. This process involved VP Research Roger Stough, Provost Peter Stearns and President Alan Merten, so it was certainly visible inside GMU.

See No Evil,

Hear No Evil

Speak No Evil … except about Ray Bradley, who has yet to receive any report.

The attached report enumerates the problems that GMU managed not to see, shows the chronology of a simple complaint that took almost 2X longer than specified by policy and finally produced an obvious contradiction. People may find GMU's funding and connections interesting, inlcuding similarities and relationships with Heartland Institute. Finally, readers might recall the WR was alleged to be an attempt to mislead Congress, so this is not just an academic issue.

UPDATE 03/1612: Wegman and Said had wriitten 2 mostly-plagiarized articles for the Wiley WIREs:CS journal, which they co-edit with David Scott. The problems were reported to Wiley last Spring, as covered in section 5.2. Deep Climate describes their solution: quietly revise the articles so the plagiarism never happened. A short section 5.3 has been added for this.

UPDATE 06/21/12: Fixed typos and broken URLs and added an 8-page extract of the Wiley-specific sections.

On Friday, March 16, 2012, the famous paleoclimatologist Dr. Michael Mann spoke to all the students and faculty at Bishop O’Connell High School, a very large Catholic high school in Arlington,VA. Dr. Mann explained the science of climate change and the possible consequences. He showed pictures from his book “Dire Consequences: Understanding Global Warming.”

The high school students, who are studying climate change in science, asked a lot of questions that impressed Dr. Mann. The science teachers were really proud of the thoughtful questions the kids asked.

The Ecology Club all had their pictures taken with Dr. Mann. They were smiling like they were standing next to a rock star!

Just so everyone knows, Catholic educational institutions teach the peer-reviewed science and follow the lead of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which includes scientists who have helped write the IPCC Assessments.

Because of Dr. Mann, when the students go on to college, they will be able to study real science in Virginia’s secular universities.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.